Belle Plaine

​​Born in New York, Frank and Tom moved to Belle Plaine when Tom was 7 and Frank was 2. Their father was a farmer and frontier lawyer, who moved the family west for a better life. ​Tom and Frank studied pre-law in Iowa, and an older brother, Will, became a lawyer and later a judge in Texas. Most of their eight siblings remained in Iowa, many in the Belle Plaine/Tama/Toledo area.

Tom and Frank McLaury

​The McLaury Family worked their farm, and the father also practiced law. One of the Mclaury sons, Edmond, left home to serve in the 14th Iowa Volunteers during the Civil War. He was taken prisoner and later able to return home, but never recovered his health. Edmond and their mother, who died when a typhoid epidemic swept the area, are both buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Belle Plaine. ​The brothers' father eventually remarried and the family moved north to Buchanan County in the 1860s,

​​The McLaury Family Farm was west of Belle Plaine and just north of Highway E66, the road to Chelsea. (Red circle on map shows location. Herring Hotel can be seen in right corner of map.)

Some time after the family left Belle Plaine, Tom and Frank (born Robert) left Iowa and moved to the Arizona Territory, where they bought and operated a ranch outside Tombstone until they died at the OK Corral Shootout, October 26, 1881.

Tom and Frank's father

Approximate location of the McLaury farm

Click on the right to learn 5 surprising facts about Belle Plaine's early days--the years McLaury Brothers lived in the area.